Lord Judge: My Lords, my daughter works in overseas development, so I declare that as an interest. I passionately follow her great passion for mankind.
I want to touch on one aspect of this, which is the way the Executive have treated Parliament. Even if this move by the Executive is lawful, they have approached it as an insult to the institution that is supposed to be sovereign. The Bill was carried by an overwhelming majority, as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, indicated. I remind the House that a mere five votes—five—opposed it in the other place in 2014.
Here we are, a few short years later, and the Executive were purporting to deny that House the opportunity even to discuss—not to vote, but to discuss and express views about—a ministerial Statement that, by mere assertion, purported to legalise non-compliance with a statutory obligation. One needs to think of what was involved in that refusal to have a debate. Absurdly, it is the wording of that Act. That unchallengeable Statement is described as “accountability”—what extraordinary legislation.
The Glorious Revolution did away with the pretended power to suspend or dispense with statute, and that is precisely what we have here. Noble Lords all know about me whinging on about our thraldom and about how Henry VIII holds us in thrall, and that last year I complained that the Government spent more time addressing the media than they did the House of Commons. I will just say it again: the way this proposal was advanced to the House was negligible. The sovereignty of Parliament was treated as a mere adjunct of Executive authority.